Included below are the many free resources available to solvers entering the Reach Higher Career App Challenge (RHCAC). Use of these tools is optional, but encouraged.
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With more than 15 million students engaged in career and technical curricula across the U.S., the Department of Education is focused on ensuring that career seekers are optimally prepared for the high-skill technical jobs of today and tomorrow.
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The American School Counselor Association recommends a student-to-school-counselor ratio of 250:1 for K-12 counselors. In reality, the national average in 2013 was 482:1 with peaks of 880:1 in Arizona and 826:1 in California.
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Note: All links are provided for informational purposes only.
Developer Resources
Sokanu API, Sokanu
Sokanu is a career test that measures an individual’s fit against various careers. Their psychometric assessment measures people on 186 traits across 8 categories including personality, needs, culture, interests, and abilities, and matches this data to a modified version of the O*NET career database. Please visit Sokanu’s website here to further explore the platform’s capabilities. If you are interested in integrating Sokanu assessments and career data into your app, please review their application program interfaces (APIs) here. To acquire an access key, please email hello@reachhigherchallenge.com with your request once you have registered for the Challenge.
Microsoft BizSpark, Microsoft
Microsoft will provide the first 100 qualified teams with free developer resources to either the BizSpark program for qualified start ups and entrepreneurs or the DreamSpark program for students and academic institutions. Please email hello@reachhigherchallenge.com with your request once you have registered for the Challenge.
IBM Bluemix™, IBM
IBM Bluemix™ is the latest cloud offering from IBM and enables organizations and developers to quickly and easily create, deploy, and manage applications on the cloud. Teams may register for a free 30-day trial from IBM here. To extend your 30-day trial for the Reach Higher Career App Challenge, please email hello@reachhigherchallenge.com and provide the email you used to register for Bluemix.
Developer’s Corner, Occupational Information Network (O*NET) Resource Center
This page facilitates the use of the O*NET Database and other O*NET Products and provides support for those interested in developing products, software, or system applications containing O*NET information
MyNextMove, U.S. Department of Labor
This tool lets user browse occupations in the O*NET database by keywords, industries, or through an interest survey.
CareerOneStop API, U.S. Department of Labor
This database provides access to localized data on educational opportunities and credential programs. Developers must apply for access to this API through the U.S. Department of Labor by emailing kelly.tenner@state.mn.us.
Khan Academy API, Khan Academy
The Khan Academy API allows developers to access content in the Khan Academy library. Khan Academy offers instructional videos and exercises in a wide variety of subject areas, from math and science to entrepreneurship and college admissions. The Khan Academy API gives developers access to nearly all types of Khan Academy data via a RESTful API that outputs easy-to-parse JSON.
Glassdoor API, Glassdoor, Inc.
This API is a free tool for developers to integrate Glassdoor’s job database into their applications. It is lightweight REST API that responds to http requests with JSON.
LinkedIn Developers APIs & SDKs, LinkedIn Corporation
This page provides a suite of APIs and software development kits (SDKs) to develop a number of LinkedIn features (e.g., authentication, job application, sharing tools) into applications.
MyData Open Data Specification, U.S. Department of Education
The MyData Initiative seeks for every student (or parent of an underage student) to have access to his or her own academic data in a machine-readable format. This is possible through the participation of schools and software developers who enable students to download their own data to create a personal learning profile that they can keep with them throughout their learning career. In addition, developers are encouraged to created customized services and tools for students based on the information available in their personal learning profile.
College Scorecard Data, U.S. Department of Education (GitHub link)
The College Scorecard is designed to increase transparency, putting the power in the hands of the public — from those choosing colleges to those improving college quality — to see how well different schools are serving their students. Download the data that appear on the College Scorecard, as well as supporting data on student completion, debt and repayment, earnings, and more. The files include data from 1996 through 2015 for all undergraduate degree-granting institutions of higher education. View the College Scorecard on GitHub here.
Ed Tech Developer’s Guide, U.S. Department of Education
The U.S. Department of Education recently released this primer for software developers, startups, and entrepreneurs to centralize and simplify resources on regulatory compliance. This developer toolkit includes information on designing for educational customers, procurement, interoperability, compliance, and other useful information.
Occupational Outlook Handbook, Bureau of Labor Statistics
This database contains occupational info (e.g., job descriptions, salary expectations, education levels) for hundreds of career paths.
Model Terms of Service Guidance, Privacy Technical Assistance Center
The Privacy Technical Assistance Center (PTAC) serves as a “one-stop” resource for education stakeholders to learn about data privacy, confidentiality, and security practices related to student-level longitudinal data systems and other uses of student data.
RIASEC Inventory (Holland Codes), Jist Publishing
This document provides an overview and guide to administering the RIASEC Inventory, also known as the Holland Codes. The U.S. Department of Labor has been using the RIASEC model in the “Interests” section of its free online database, O*NET , since its inception during the late 1990.
Career and Technical Education (CTE)
Education to Employment: Designing a System That Works, McKinsey & Company
This report reviews a survey of 8,000 employers, education providers, and students regarding job preparedness and skills preparation. The report also includes insights from reviewing successful CTE curricula.
What is CTE?, Association for Career and Technical Education
Here the Association for Career and Technical Education provides a primer about the history of CTE and how it benefits high school students, college students, adults, businesses, and the economy.
The National Career Clusters® Framework, National Association of State Directors of Career Technical Education Consortium
The National Career Clusters Framework provides a vital structure for organizing and delivering quality CTE programs. In total, there are 16 Career Clusters in the National Career Clusters Framework, representing more than 79 Career Pathways to help students navigate their way to greater success in college and career.
Career and Technical Education, 5 Ways that Pay, Georgetown University
This report details the 29 million “middle jobs” – jobs that pay middle class wages for workers without a four-year degree and the five major pathways that lead to those jobs. The report also details five major sub-baccalaureate CTE pathways: employer-based training, industry-based certifications, apprenticeships, postsecondary certificates, and associate’s degrees.
Career Guidance and Counseling
True North: Charting the Course to College and Career Readiness, College Board Advocacy & Policy Center
Based on an annual survey of over 2,800 high school counselors, this report emphasizes the potential of counselors and to accelerate student achievement and illustrate, the barriers counselors face today, and strategies to pass these barriers.
Career and College Counseling in America’s High Schools, National Association for College Admission Counseling
This paper reviews the evidence on what students need to do when preparing for college, the history of school counseling, counselors’ work and availability, and research evidence on good college counseling. It also explains how counselors are structurally constrained from doing their job.
Effective Counseling in Schools Increases College Access, National Association for College Admission Counseling
This research report explores how counselors can positively affect students’ postsecondary aspirations and attainment, how counseling can have a significant impact on college access for all students, and how increasing the number of counselors available to students is one of the top three reforms needed to improve college access.
Disclaimer
This website contains information and resources from public and private organizations that may be useful to the reader. Inclusion of this information does not constitute an endorsement by the U.S. Department of Education (ED) or Luminary Labs of any products or services offered or views expressed. Blog articles provide insights on the activities of schools, programs, grantees, and other education stakeholders to promote continuing discussion of educational innovation and reform. Blog articles do not endorse any educational product, service, curriculum or pedagogy.
This website also contains hyperlinks and URLs created and maintained by outside organizations, which are provided for the reader’s convenience. ED and Luminary Labs are not responsible for the accuracy of the information contained therein.